David Weir

David Weir

"I love startups. I've loved them all my adult life. The first one I worked on was SunDance magazine, at 1913 Fillmore Street, in San Francisco in 1971. After a half dozen or so others, Rolling Stone hired me in 1975; and though it no longer technically qualified as a startup, it was still in Act One of its particular drama, as I've written and blogged about many times in many places.

"I was part of Mother Jones, as it started; and New West/California during its all-too-brief reign. The most important startup of my entire career was (and remains) the Center for Investigative Reporting, which I helped build from scratch from 1977-1989. Ever since, I've remained on the board, trying to stabilize and extend this valuable institution into the future.

"But it was not only media companies that attracted me. I've also devoted a substantial part of my energy to helping build non-profits devoted to global environmental and social justice issues. The prime examples are the Pesticide Action Network and the Rainforest Action Network, but there are many, many more. Some are still active; some are not.

"Nevertheless, despite all of these efforts, nothing had adequately prepared me for what confronted me when I joined HotWired late in 1995. This was ground zero for Web 1.0. Wired magazine had already caught the publishing world's attention and won National Magazine Awards, but despite my background in magazines, I didn't join that side of the company."


 * Editorial Board, The Nation

Books

 * David Weir and Mark Schapiro, Circle of Poison: Pesticides and People in a Hungry World (Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1981).
 * David Weir and Dan Noyes, Raising Hell: How the Center for Investigative Reporting Gets the Story (Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1983). Foreword by Mike Wallace.
 * David Weirm The Bhopal Syndrome: Persistent questions about acute toxicity and management of gas victims (1986).

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * Keep Media